System and method for fragment level dynamic content regeneration

ABSTRACT

A system and method for provisioning dynamically generated content. One embodiment can interface a content delivery system and a content management system at the fragment level. Depending upon how a page is organized, a fragment may refer to a block within the page, a portion of the page, or a content item presented on the page. When a content item is updated and published onto the content management system, one embodiment can operate to track dependencies of managed pages and invalidate/validate fragment(s) affected by the change(s) accordingly. The updated fragment(s) may then be dynamically assembled on-the-fly or on-demand. The updated fragment(s) may or may not be cached. In this way, changes made to a piece of content can be reflected in all pages which utilize this content almost simultaneously with the changes to the content itself.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This is a continuation of, and claims a benefit of priority from U.S.patent application Ser. No. 13/867,828, filed Apr. 22, 2013, entitled“SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR FRAGMENT LEVEL DYNAMIC CONTENT REGENERATION,”which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/566,041,filed Aug. 3, 2012, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,433,724, entitled “A SYSTEMUSING CONTENT GENERATOR FOR DYNAMICALLY REGENERATING ONE OR MOREFRAGMENTS OF WEB PAGE BASED ON NOTIFICATION OF CONTENT CHANGE,” which isa continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/900,057, filedOct. 7, 2010, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,260,802, entitled “A SYSTEM USINGCONTENT GENERATOR FOR DYNAMICALLY REGENERATING ONE OR MORE FRAGMENTS OFWEB PAGE BASED ON NOTIFICATION OF CONTENT CHANGE,” which is acontinuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/444,020, filed May31, 2006, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,860,820, entitled “A SYSTEM USING CONTENTGENERATOR FOR DYNAMICALLY REGENERATING ONE OR MORE FRAGMENTS OF WEB PAGEBASED ON NOTIFICATION OF CONTENT CHANGE,” which is a conversion of, andclaims a benefit of priority from U.S. Provisional Application No.60/686,089, filed May 31, 2005, entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR THEPROVISIONING OF DYNAMICALLY GENERATED CONTENT.” This application alsorelates to co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/444,023, filedMay 31, 2006, entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR THE DYNAMIC PROVISIONINGOF STATIC CONTENT.” All applications listed in this paragraph are fullyincorporated by reference herein for all purposes.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This disclosure relates in general to the delivery of content, and moreparticularly, to methods and systems for fragment level dynamic contentregeneration.

BACKGROUND OF THE RELATED ART

With the proliferation of information on the Internet, it is becomingincreasingly difficult to prepare and deliver content to users in anefficient and timely manner. Current content delivery systems generallyemploy two content publishing techniques. The first one involves thedynamic publication of static content (e.g., web pages) to the web tier.Typically, most web sites are produced by in-sequence publishingactions. For example, a set of web pages can be generated on achronological basis by an application server and made available to a webserver for appropriate actions. In other words, to implement a web site,a set of web pages may be produced at an application layer and publishedat a presentation layer. These layers are part of the seven operatingsystem (OS) layers known in the art.

In response to a user request, the web server may operate to deliver oneor more of web pages to the user. If that user elects to “refresh” thedelivered content (e.g., by clicking a “Refresh” button on a browserapplication's menu), the same content may be delivered to the useragain. All of the web pages implementing a web site can be updated asneeded or reproduced at some regular interval to incorporate changes inthe content. However, all of the web pages implementing the web site mayhave to be reproduced. Moreover, changes made to the content may only betaken into account at the intervals at which the web pages arereproduced. Thus, web pages delivered to a user may, for a period oftime, contain stale content. In addition, reproducing web pages for eachand every web site affected by certain changes may require a long periodof time.

Another content publishing technique involves portal applications orstandard Java® service or Server Page (JSP) applications. Theseapplications typically have dynamic scripting capability that can workin tandem with hypertext markup language (HTML) code to separate thelogic of a page from its static elements (e.g., the actual design layoutand display of the page). The extracted portion of the page can then beused to make dynamic database queries and assemble pages on-the-flyaccordingly.

Within this disclosure, term “portal” generally refers to a gateway thatis or can be a starting site, a home site, or an anchor site fornetworked users visiting the World Wide Web (WWW or web). Examples ofportals include www.yahoo.com, www.cnet.com, www.microsoft.com, andwww.aol.com. A portal is a kind of web site with a rich navigationstructure of internal links within the same site and external links toother sites. In some cases, a company may provide one or more portalsconnecting the company's intranet to the web. Currently, most portalsadopt a style of categorizing content with a text-intensive, fastloading web page. Services provided by portals or portal sites typicallyinclude a directory of web sites or links, a search facility to searchfor other sites, news, weather, email, stock quotes, maps, and so on.

A portal site may comprise portlets or portal pages through which aplurality of channels and sub-channels of content can be presented toend users. Large scale portal sites capable of handling a high volume ofcontent are typically built with a few “page templates” that can bereused over and over again to display content. For example, in responseto a user request, a portal page may be assembled on-the-fly based on apage template. In this manner, content displayed on the portal site canremain up-to-date and not all pages of the portal site must bereproduced.

Web sites and portal sites, particularly large scale portal sites, aregenerally produced and managed at the server side, transparent to endusers. While content delivery systems employing JSP or portalapplications offer many advantages, there is no automated process tocoordinate update activities in the backend. More specifically, updateactivities made by and at a content delivery system may not beautomatically propagated to a content management system. Conversely,update activities made by and at the content management system may notbe automatically propagated to the content delivery system.

Therefore, there is a need for a new system and method for the dynamicprovisioning of static content for network delivery. Embodiments of theinvention can address this need and more.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The disclosure is directed to interfacing a content delivery system anda content management system in an automated, efficient manner,addressing the technical challenges described above. More specifically,embodiments of the systems and methods described herein can providemechanisms for refreshing information presented on the content deliverysystem based on information published on the content management system.Embodiments of the invention described herein can be useful indynamically provisioning and delivering dynamically generated static aswell as dynamic content.

In one embodiment, a static solution involves interfacing a contentdelivery system and a content management system at the page level.Within this disclosure, the term “page” refers to a web page, a portalpage, or the like. With the static solution, updating a piece of content(e.g., an article or a content item) can cause the dynamic reproductionof all pages associated with the piece of content.

In one embodiment, a dynamic solution involves interfacing the contentdelivery system and a content management system at a sub-page level. Inthis case, updating a piece of dynamically generated content may causethe dynamic reproduction of one or more fragments associated with thepiece of content. The updated fragment(s) may then be dynamicallyassembled on-the-fly or on-demand. The updated fragment(s) may or maynot be cached. In this way, changes made to a piece of dynamicallygenerated content can be reflected in all pages which utilize thiscontent almost simultaneously with the changes to the content itself.

In some embodiments, dependencies between a page, portion(s) orfragment(s) of the page, and the associated, underlying content item(s)can be tracked in a timely, accurate manner. As an example, a piece ofcontent (e.g., an HTML document, an article, a link, a content item,etc.) may appear on multiple web pages and may be in various forms(e.g., an abbreviated version of an article, an abstract or summary ofthe article, a recitation of the article, etc.). When that content itemis updated and published onto a content management system, oneembodiment of the invention can operate to track dependencies of theseweb pages and invalidate or validate the fragment or fragments affectedby the change or changes accordingly. Within this disclosure, the term“fragment” generally refers to a piece of data or a unit of content andmay vary depending upon how the page is organized. A fragment may referto a block within a page, a portion of a page, or a content itempresented on a page (e.g., an HTML file, a uniform resource link, etc.).An exemplary content item can be a piece of article.

In some embodiments, a cache can be employed in managing thedependencies and association of highly dynamic data (i.e., freshcontent). In one embodiment, the cache may implement a lookup mechanismin which a fast search can be done based on a key. In one embodiment,system attributes such as display format, channel, site, item, locale,user, group, class, etc. can be used to compute the key, which may ormay not be hashed. In one embodiment, the term “locale” refers to wherea user is located and can be sensitive to the locale of a client and/ora server. In one embodiment, if a match (e.g., a page, a fragment, etc.)is found in the cache, it is sent to a content delivery system forrendering. If not, a new page or fragment may be generated and cached.The cache can be refreshed externally from a content manager (e.g.,changes to published content can trigger refreshing) and internally froma cache manager (e.g., scheduled refreshing, administrative flushing,etc.).

Embodiments of the invention can provide many advantages. For example,the static solution allows changes to static content managed by acontent management system be dynamically made all at once. Dynamicallyprovisioned static content can then be pushed out to a content deliverysystem for publishing to the web tier in an automated, efficient manner,thus saving implementation and deployment costs. The dynamic solutionallows dependencies among constituents of a site to be trackeddynamically. Thus, only fragments that are affected by changes wouldneed to be updated, further saving time and resources. Embodiments ofthe invention may be particularly useful for portal applications.Portals or portal sites are typically designed to provide a large volumeof business users highly secure and personalized access to a range ofcontent behind a firewall on internal networks (e.g., intranets) and/orin secure external networks (e.g., virtual private networks). Theautomated updating process disclosed herein can further reduce risksassociated with portal ownership, implementation, and deployment.

Other objects and advantages of the disclosure will become apparent toone skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the detaileddescription of the preferred embodiments described herein with referenceto the following drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a simplified diagrammatic representation of exemplary systemarchitecture in which embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented.

FIG. 2 is a simplified flow diagram illustrating an exemplary staticsolution for the dynamic provisioning of static content, implementingembodiments disclosed herein.

FIG. 3 is a simplified flow diagram illustrating an exemplary dynamicsolution for the provisioning of dynamically generated content,implementing embodiments disclosed herein.

FIG. 4 is a simplified flow diagram illustrating an exemplary dynamicsolution in which a caching mechanism is employed for the provisioningof dynamically generated content, implementing embodiments disclosedherein.

FIG. 5 is a simplified diagrammatic representation of an exemplary siteorganization, showing possible association(s) between a piece of contentand constituents of the site, according to one embodiment disclosedherein.

FIG. 6 is a simplified diagrammatic representation of an exemplary pageon which dynamically provisioned content may be presented according toembodiments disclosed herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The invention and various features and advantageous details thereof areexplained more fully with reference to the exemplary, and thereforenon-limiting, embodiments illustrated in the accompanying drawings anddetailed in the following description. Descriptions of known programmingtechniques, computer software, hardware, operating platforms andprotocols may be omitted so as not to unnecessarily obscure theinvention in detail. It should be understood, however, that the detaileddescription and the specific examples, while indicating the preferredembodiments of the invention, are given by way of illustration only andnot by way of limitation. Various substitutions, modifications,additions and/or rearrangements within the spirit and/or scope of theunderlying inventive concept will become apparent to those skilled inthe art from this disclosure.

FIG. 1 is a simplified representation of system architecture in whichspecific embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented. As one skilledin the art can appreciate, the systems and methods disclosed herein maybe utilized with respect to a wide variety of other architectures. Thus,the exemplary architecture shown and described with respect to FIG. 1 ismeant to be illustrative and not limiting. Additionally, it will beunderstood that, though components of the exemplary architecture aredescribed and pictured individually, the functionality of the elementsof the exemplary architecture may be combined into one or more pieces ofsoftware or hardware.

In FIG. 1, system architecture 100 comprises network 130 and network160. Network 130 can be characterized as an external network and network160 can be characterized as an internal network. The Internet might bean example of an external network and a company's intranet might be anexample of an internal network. Each network in system architecture 100can be bi-directionally coupled to a variety of networked systems,devices, repositories, etc.

In the simplified configuration shown in FIG. 1, network 130 isbi-directionally coupled to a plurality of client machines 100A . . . Nand at least one server 110. Virtually any piece of hardware orelectronic device capable of running client software and communicatingwith server 110 can be considered a client machine. For the sake ofsimplicity, client machines 100A . . . N are referred to hereinafter asclient 100.

As an example, client 100 may include a central processing unit (CPU),read-only memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), hard drive (HD) ornon-volatile memory, and input/output (I/O) device(s). An I/O device maybe a keyboard, monitor, printer, electronic pointing device (e.g.,mouse, trackball, etc.), or the like. The hardware configuration ofclient 100 can be representative to other devices and computers alikecoupled to network 130 (e.g., desktop computers, laptop computers,personal digital assistants, handheld computers, cellular phones, andany electronic devices capable of storing and processing information andnetwork communication).

In the example shown in FIG. 1, server 110, content generator 120,content manager 140, and devices or stations 150A . . . N reside innetwork 160. In one embodiment, server 110 embodies a content deliverysystem (CDS), which is in bi-directional communication with contentgenerator or content generation system (CGS) 120 and content manager orcontent management system (CMS) 140. CDS, CGS, and CMS may beimplemented on one or more server computers, each of which may compriseat least one processor, at least one persistent memory, at least onevolatile memory, and a plurality of I/O ports. CDS, CGS, and CMS mayhave a plurality of software components residing thereon implementingcontent delivery, page generation, and content management.

For the sake of simplicity, hardware components (e.g., CPU, ROM, RAM,HD, I/O, etc.) are not illustrated in FIG. 1. Embodiments of theinvention may be implemented in suitable software code (i.e.,computer-executable instructions). As one skilled in the art canappreciate, computer-executable instructions and data implementingembodiments of the invention may be carried on various types ofcomputer-readable media, including volatile and non-volatile computermemories and storage devices (e.g., ROM, RAM, HD, direct access storagedevice arrays, magnetic tapes, floppy diskettes, optical storagedevices, etc.). In an illustrative embodiment of the invention, thecomputer-executable instructions may be written in Java® or anyappropriate computer language. In embodiments of the invention, some orall of the software components may reside on a single server computer oron any combination of separate server computers. For example, softwarecomponents implementing content delivery system 110 and contentmanagement system 140 could reside on the same server computer.

A processor implementing embodiments of the invention may have internaland/or external access to a variety of computer-readable media. EachCDS, CGS, and CMS may be bi-directionally coupled to one or moredatabases. Each database may contain data objects and metadata regardingthose objects. A database can be implemented in a computer readablemedium as known in the art.

Individuals using network 160 may access CDS, CGS, and CMS throughvarious means such as desktop computers, laptops, workstations, etc.These individuals may include content producers, content developers,content editors, content reviewers, webmasters, information technologyspecialists, and the like.

In addition to FIG. 1, many other configurations are possible. Forexample, within each CDS 110 and CMS 140, a plurality of computers maybe interconnected to each other over an internal network or acombination of internal and external networks. Moreover, CDS 110, CMS140, and CGS 120 may be part of a network site (e.g., web site, portalsite, etc.).

Communications between any of the computers described above may beaccomplished in various ways, including wired and wireless. As oneskilled in the art can appreciate, network communications can includeelectronic signals, optical signals, radio-frequency signals, and othersignals as well as combinations thereof.

Within this disclosure, content may be an application or piece of dataprovided by a web site such as an HTML page, Java application, or thelike. In many cases, one piece of content may be assembled from otherpieces of content chosen based on a request initiated by a user of theweb site. For example, client devices 100 may be utilized by an end userto communicate a request for content provided by a web site over network130. This request may be in the form of an HTTP request containing a URLas is known in the art. The request may arrive at server 110. Inresponse to the request, content delivery system residing at server 110(hereinafter referred to as “content delivery system 110”) may operateto communicate a page or piece of content responsive to this request toclient device 100. Additionally, content delivery system 110 may passthe request to content generation system 120. Content generation system120 may operate to generate a new page or piece of content that isresponsive to this request and return the dynamically generated contentto content delivery system 110 for delivery to client device 100.

In one embodiment, content generation system 120 may generate a set ofcontent or pages and make them accessible to content delivery system110. In response to a request, content delivery system 110 maydynamically deliver all or a portion of the previously generated contentto client device 100. For example, in response to a particular userrequest from client device 100A, content delivery system 110 may obtaina copy of a piece of content previously generated by content generationsystem 120 which most closely matches the user request and deliver it toclient device 100A. This implementation may be especially useful for ahigh volume web site which does not require a high degree ofpersonalization of web pages to a particular user.

FIG. 2 depicts a simplified flow diagram 200 for the dynamicprovisioning of content according to one embodiment of the invention. Atstep 210, a set of pages may be generated based on content informationpublished on content management system 140. These pages may then beutilized in responding to requests at step 220. If content changes atstep 230, one or more of the pages may be dynamically regenerated.Multiple pages may be regenerated even when a single content item hasbeen changed, based on the implicit or explicit dependencies that existamong the involved pages. Within this disclosure, a content item refersto a data object defined by a specific content type. A content typerepresents the structured specification of a content item and containsmetadata and a set of relations which contain attribute definitions. Acontent item or content instance may contain and reference actualrepository data. Repository data can exist in a database table, afilesystem, or any other system that can be reached via integrationservices.

In one embodiment, content generation system 120 may utilize a set oftemplates for the assembly or generation of a page or set of pages.Within this disclosure, a template refers to a defined page that canexist apart from specific site navigation. A template may containspecial portlets that understand object context in order to do contentdisplay and rendering. A template can also be cached. Within thisdisclosure, context refers to a specific object identifier used to keycontent selection in a portlet on a template. Content selection refersto the act of querying deployed or repository content based on a set ofselectable criteria. Content selection may be used in conjunction withpersonalization rules. Deployment is a content management function andrefers to the act of distributing content and metadata from a managementrepository.

These templates may be created or defined by the administrator of a siteor portal, and may define a set of content items to be incorporated intoan assembled page. Each of these templates may have one or morevariables upon which these templates may be assembled. Thus, aparticular page results if a page is assembled using a particulartemplate with a variable set to a particular value. If another page isassembled from the same template and all parameters, attributes, and soon remain the same, but with a different value for the same variable,the resulting page may be different.

Pages implementing a site may be assembled or otherwise generated from aset of templates based on a set of permutations of particular variablesassociated therewith. This generation process results in a set ofgenerated or assembled web pages. These assembled pages may then beprovided to content delivery system 110. One or more of thesepre-generated pages may then be served by content delivery system 110 inresponse to a request from a user as described above. These particularvariables may be a subset of a larger set of variables intended to allowthe personalization of pages generated from the template. The othervariables may either be ignored or held constant while pages aregenerated from the template using the permutations of the particularvariables.

In one embodiment, there may be three variables on which the pages areto be generated: Channel (i.e., location in the navigation graph of thesite/portal), Locale (e.g., American, English, French, etc.) and Displayformat (e.g., a descriptor that can differentiate templates associatedto the same content type on a site). As will be described in detailswith reference to FIG. 5, a site and hence its content can be organizedthrough Channels.

In one embodiment, content generation system 120 may be sensitive tochanges in content pertinent to the pages that have been generated anddelivered or made accessible to content delivery system 110.Specifically, content generation system 120 may operate to takeappropriate action(s) based upon changes related to provisioned content.For example, content management system 140 may store content and may belinked to a variety of devices 150 such as databases, servers, etc. thatstore and/or produce content. In one embodiment, content managementsystem 140 is responsible for managing all content produced and/orstored in network 160. If a piece of content changes, this change may bedetected (e.g., via a listener embedded in device 150) or communicatedto content management system 140. Content management system 140 may thencommunicate this change to content generation system 120.

In response to this notification and to account for this change, contentgeneration system 120 may dynamically re-generate one or more of thepages which had been previously generated and delivered or madeaccessible to content delivery system 110. As an example, suppose that alink to a page or content is included on one of the twenty-seven webpages rendered in the above example. In one embodiment, this linked pageor content resides on content management system 140. If this page orcontent is removed from content management system 140, contentmanagement system 140 may notify content generation system 120 of theremoval. In response to this notification, content generation system 120may re-generate the page that linked to this content or page and deliverthis newly generated page to content delivery system 110 to replace theold page. Embodiments of the invention implementing the above-describedstatic solution (i.e., the dynamic provisioning of static content) maybe particularly useful for almost any alteration of content pertinent toweb pages generated by content generation system 120.

In some embodiments, when content delivery system 110 receives a requestfor content (e.g., previously generated web pages), it may pass therequest through to content generation system 120. In response, contentgeneration system 120 may dynamically create a page that is personalizedbased on the request. These pages may be assembled from a set of contentmanaged by content management system 140 or any other content, all ofwhich may change independently of one another. Embodiments of theinvention implementing the dynamic provisioning of static content at thepage level may be particularly useful when a large portion of thecontent to be presented on web pages will change frequently, when alarge degree of personalization of web pages is desired (e.g., via userrequests), or when it is desired to personalize the delivered web pagesbased upon a wide variety of context variables.

FIG. 3 depicts a simplified flow diagram 300 that further exemplifiesthe dynamic solution for provisioning content in a network environment.At step 310, a request is received. At step 320, variables related tothe request may then be obtained from the request or sources other thanthe request. Based on these variables, a page or content may begenerated in response to the request at step 330.

More specifically, upon receiving a request, content generation system120 may generate a page or content from a template based on a set ofvariables associated with the template. The values for these variablesmay be based at least in part on the request. The assembled page orgenerated content may then be returned to content delivery system 110for delivery to the client 100 from which the request was issued. Inparticular, content generation system 120 may take the values of contextvariables from the request and other environmental variables (e.g.,time, a user's membership in a previously defined group, or a categoryof users, etc.) to assemble content or a page which may be specificallytailored to a particular user request at the time the request isreceived at content generation system 120. In one embodiment, thecontext variables or identifiers in the request may allow contentgeneration system 120 to select managed content or other content forinclusion in the web page assembled from the template.

Content generation system 120 may also cache rendered content such thatthe rendered content may be utilized in any page generated from any ofthe templates utilized by content generation system 120. For example,suppose an article is stored on or accessible by content managementsystem 140, and it is desired to include this article (along with othercontent) in a page being assembled by content generation system 120 fordelivery to end user(s). This article may be rendered for presentationin the generated page. As a specific example, the article may be textstored in a database. To render the article, however, the text may beencapsulated with some HTML code so that the article may appear acertain way (e.g., style, font, text size) in the page being generatedand delivered to a client machine and displayed via a graphical userinterface thereof.

What is more, this article may appear in conjunction with one or morepages (e.g., in implementing a portal site). To facilitate the inclusionof this article across these pages, the rendered version of the articlemay be cached. Thus, when each of these pages is assembled for deliveryto the user, the rendered article may be included from the cache,reducing the time required for the assembly of each of these pages.

Additionally, to make sure that the most recent content is beingdelivered to a user in conjunction with these assembled pages, cachingparameters may be stored along with the rendered content. As one skilledin the art can appreciate, these caching parameters may includemeta-data associated with the rendered content, or almost any other typeof data imaginable. In one embodiment, content management system 140 mayoperate to notify content generation system 120 when the content changeson content management system 140 or devices 150. This can be done, forexample, by using data related to one or more of the caching parametersstored in the cache in conjunction with the content. Thus, when contentgeneration system 120 is informed that cached content has changed bycontent management system 140, the next time a web page which includesthis content is requested from content generation system 120, thiscontent may be re-rendered and re-cached. In this manner, content whichhas changed may be updated without having to update any other contentwhich is on the same web page and which has not changed.

In some cases, however, external content may be needed in assembling webpages for delivery to end user(s). External content refers to contentthat is not managed by content management system 140. This externalcontent, however, may also be rendered, included in a page assembled inresponse to a user request and the rendered version of this externalcontent placed in a cache. In this case, to make sure that renderedexternal content stored in the cache is updated at a regular interval, atiming mechanism may be associated with the rendered external content inthe cache. This timing mechanism may trigger the expiration of therendered external content and the expulsion of the rendered externalcontent from the cache, or may alternatively trigger a re-fetch andre-rendering of the external content, which may then replace the olderversion of the rendered external content in the cache. Such a timingmechanism may be an internal, built-in feature of the cache.Alternatively, the cache may provide a means for an external system toindicate when such external content is no longer valid, which similarlycan trigger the expulsion of the cached content and/or automaticre-fetch and re-rendering of the external content.

FIG. 4 depicts a simplified flow diagram 400 illustrating exemplaryembodiments of the invention utilizing a caching framework. In FIG. 4,one embodiment of a method implementing flow 400 may include the stepsof registering a content template pertaining to a piece of content(block 402), receiving a request for content (block 404), associatingthe request with an appropriate content template (block 406),identifying parameters associated with the content template from therequest (block 408), evaluating these parameters (block 410), and, basedon the evaluation, determining whether any content responsive to therequest is located in the cache (block 412). If responsive content isnot located in the cache framework, the method may further include astep of generating (e.g., via content generation system 120) responsivecontent (block 416) and optionally caching this dynamically generatedresponsive content along with associated metadata (block 418).Dynamically generated and/or cached responsive content may then bereturned to the requestor (block 420).

As one skilled in the art can appreciate, not all of the activitiesdescribed in the process flow diagram 400 are required. Moreover, anelement within a specific activity may not be required and furtheractivities may be performed in addition to those illustrated.Additionally, the order in which the activities are listed is notnecessarily the order in which they are performed. After reading thisspecification, a person of ordinary skill in the art will be capable ofdetermining which activities and orderings best suit any particularobjective.

When a request comes in from a client computer (e.g., client 100), thisrequest contains a URL which references a particular piece of contentresiding on an application server. As is known, an application servercan be in many forms including Perl scripts, Java programs, C/C++programs, active server pages, or a combination thereof. As describedabove, there are many possible ways to implement content delivery system110, content generation system 120, and content management system 140.For example, server 110 could be a web server programmed to operate allthree software systems (i.e., content delivery, content generation, andcontent management). Alternatively, content generation system 120 andcontent management system 140 may be embodied in one or more applicationserver computers separate from web server 110.

The requested piece of content may be assembled from various constituentsubparts and returned to client 100 based upon specifics contained inthe request. Consequently, a template may be formed from a piece ofcontent which contains metadata regarding certain aspects of a requestwhich may pertain to assembling the specifics and subparts of aparticular piece of content, as discussed above. In one embodiment, whena new piece of content, or a new application server such as a JSP,becomes part of a web site, a template containing metadata pertinent tothat piece of content or application server may be registered with acaching framework (block 402). In one embodiment, the caching frameworkmay contain one or more caches. For example, a first cache may reside onand/or is accessible by content delivery system 110 and one cache mayreside on and/or is accessible by content generation system 120. Thefirst cache may store pre-generated static content (e.g., web pages)that can be delivered to end users dynamically in response to a userrequest. The second cache may store information relevant for the dynamicgeneration of template-based dynamic content. In one embodiment, thecaching framework may implement a cache in communication with a webserver (e.g., server 110) and an application server (e.g., contentgeneration system 120).

After a request is received at step 404 (e.g., by web server 110), thisrequest may be associated with a template (block 406). As an example, arequest issued from client 100 usually contains a URL which may refer toa specific piece of content residing on content management system 140,along with associated data pertaining to how a user on client 100 wouldlike the requested content assembled. In accordance with this request,software implementing the caching framework may operate to identify aparticular piece of content that is to be assembled by comparinginformation derived from the URL of an incoming request with templatesregistered for various pieces of content in network 160. The templatewhich is identified to be responsive to the requested content is thenassociated with the incoming request (block 406).

The identified template, in turn, may contain a list of parameters whichare helpful in tailoring the assembly of this content to the incomingrequest. The metadata associated with the template corresponding to therequested content may allow identification of parameters to which aparticular piece of content is sensitive (block 408). These parametersmay include form data, header data, session, request, page-context,browser-features and other such data which will be obvious to those ofordinary skill in the art. Software implementing the caching frameworkmay further operate to parse the incoming request for informationrelating to the parameters indicated by the template. In one embodiment,the parsed and/or extracted information, along with the associatedtemplate metadata, may be communicated to one or more software moduleswithin the caching framework for evaluation at step 410. Evaluationsoftware modules may operate to analyze the extracted information andassociated template metadata and return several pieces of data to a webserver (i.e., content delivery system 110) and/or application server(i.e., content generation system 120). The returned data may include astatus which indicates whether the web server should map the incomingrequest from client 100 to a cache file for static content or let therequest go through to application server for dynamic evaluation andcontent generation (block 416). In other words, the returned data fromthe evaluation step at 410 can affect whether the request should beserved with pre-generated content (e.g., from the cache file). As anexample, if an evaluation software module sees a certain cookie, therequest may be determined to be subject to dynamic evaluation.

The returned data may include a string pertaining to the parameter forwhich a software module is responsible. For example, a query stringmodule may return the value “city=Austin&state=TX”, while a browsercapabilities module may return the value “IE6 JavaScript Frames” in thecase where the browser initiating the request is Internet ExplorerVersion 6. Other data which may be returned may include request metadatawhich is to be stored with the cached content so as to facilitate theregeneration of the request, resulting in an associated piece of cachedcontent. Once the request has been evaluated (block 410) and responsivecontent identified (block 412) or dynamically generated (block 416),static content (e.g., full web page or pages) or dynamically generatedcontent (e.g., fragments of a web page or pages) responsive to theincoming request may be returned to the user on client 100 (block 420).

Content cached in the caching framework may be stored with correspondingmetadata for efficient management of the cached content. This metadatamay include attributes pertaining to the template which corresponds tothe content, and attributes which pertains to the request which resultedin the content being cached. This metadata may allow cached content tobe automatically updated without receiving an identical request for thecontent. It will be recognized by those of ordinary skill in the artthat other types of data may be stored in a caching frameworkimplementing flow 400 which will allow the automatic update of cachedcontent.

A caching framework implementing embodiments of the invention mayimplement a lookup mechanism in which a fast search can be done based ona key. As described above, system attributes which can be used tocompute the key may include Channel, Site, Item, etc. The term “channel”is intended to mean a hierarchical navigation of content on a site orportal. A channel can also be used to display content in applications.

FIG. 5 is a simplified diagrammatic representation of an exemplary siteorganization tree 500, showing possible associations between a piece ofcontent (e.g., Article 550) and constituents of a site (e.g., Site 510),according to one embodiment of the invention. In this example,constituents of Site 510 include Channel 520 comprising a plurality ofsub-channels 521. In one embodiment, Site 510 may comprise a pluralityof portal pages through which one or more Channel 520 and sub-channels521 of content (e.g., article 550) can be presented to end users.

In one embodiment, there may be three variables on which portal pagescan be generated to implement site 510: Channel, Locale, and Displayformat. Channel usually refers to a location in the navigation graph ofthe site/portal. Locale usually refers to information related to both alanguage and a region (e.g., ‘EN_US’ may represent the English languageand American formatting of time/date values, currency, etc. Based onvarious permutations of these variables, a set of pages may be generatedor assembled from one or more templates. Content generation system 120may assemble a set of pages from a template based upon differentpermutations of these variables. For example, if there are threepossible values for Channel, three possible values for Locale, and threepossible values for Display format, content generation system 120 mayoperate to assemble a set of twenty-seven web pages from a templatebased upon the various permutations of these variables. These twentyseven web pages can then be made accessible to content delivery system110, which, in turn, can serve one of these to a user at client 100 inresponse to a user request. Thus, if a user requests a page on the basisof Locale, the user may get a variant or permutation of the pagespecific to the locale they requested. In one embodiment, if one ofthese pages does not correspond exactly to the locale, a user may get avariant of that page in which the value of Locale, which was used togenerate of that variant, most closely matches the locale of the user.

Each of the permutations of the generated pages may also be translatedto another format before delivery or being accessible to contentdelivery system 110. In this way, content delivery system 110 would beable to deliver a particular page of the generated content or page in aparticular format in response to a request from a user.

FIG. 6 is a simplified diagrammatic representation of exemplary page600, according to one embodiment of the invention. As one skilled in theart can appreciate, a web or portal site could encompass a virtuallyunlimited number of pages, each of which may contain one or morefeatures resembling page 600. In one embodiment, page 600 represents aportal page template comprising a plurality of display areas or sectionsrepresented by header 610, menu 620, item(s) 630, side menu 640, andfooter 650. Within this disclosure, a section refers to an area of atemplate that contains managed content. Each area or section may, inturn, include one or more subsections or areas (e.g., input area 645).Page 600 may be utilized to build a starting portal site (e.g., Site510) which may include one or more ways for content navigation. Forexample, header 610 and/or footer 650 may be implemented as a navigationtool bar or panel with a plurality of navigation items, each of whichmay be linked to another page internal or external to the website. Inanother example, side menu 640 could include a plurality of menu items,each of which may be a link to another page internal or external to theweb site. In yet another example, a user may input a query for aparticular content via input area 645. In response to the user query,the user may be presented with one or more content items via area 630 ora page internal or external to the website.

A portal or web site could be built in many ways based on page 600. Forexample, header 610 may contain the general, top-level navigation itemsavailable to the other key areas of the site and the rest of the areasmay be driven by content. The top-level navigation panel or header mayor may not be template driven. Further, each area may be linked to ordriven by one or more software modules. For example, area 645 may beassociated with a search utility, area 630 may be linked to area 645 forpresenting results (e.g., categories of articles or products, channellinks to content, featured article(s) or product(s), featured article(s)or product(s) by category, etc.) from a search inquiry, footer 650 maybe associated with information presented in area 630 (e.g.,“breadcrumbs” or related content items of a content item presented inarea 630), etc.

As described above with reference to FIG. 2, a plurality of pages may beassembled or otherwise generated from page 600 based on a set ofpermutations of particular variables associated with page 600. Thegenerated or assembled full HTML pages may then be pushed to the webtier (e.g., cached at web server 110) for delivery to end users.

In one embodiment, as described above with respect to the staticsolution, dependencies (e.g., associations and/or links) between thesepages may be correspondingly tracked at the page level (e.g., viametadata residing on the filesystem, main memory, database, cache,etc.). As an example, suppose page 600 represents a portal page, if andwhen page 600 or any part thereof (e.g., an article posted in area 630,a headline posted in area 610, a tab presented in area 620, or a menuitem shown in side menu 640, etc.) is updated or otherwise affected by achange (e.g., a content supervisor at device 150A modified the contentof the article posted in area 630, the content supervisor being acompany user authorized to work with managed content, content types,projects, channels, workflows, queries, etc.), content management system140 may operate to notify or otherwise communicate this change tocontent generation system 120. Upon receiving notification of the changeand based on its knowledge of the page dependencies, content generationsystem 120 correspondingly and dynamically re-generates page 600 withupdated content and, where applicable, any and all pages that areaffected by the change. The dynamically re-generated page(s) can then bepushed to the web tier for delivery to end users as described above(e.g., in response to a user query or per a predetermined schedule).

In one embodiment, as described above with respect to the dynamicsolution, dependencies can be tracked at the fragment level (i.e.,sub-page level). In this way, only fragments that are affected by thechange(s) would need to be re-generated to account for the change(s) orupdate(s). Thus, following the above example, only the article posted inarea 630 of page 600 and any fragments that are affected by the contentsupervisor's modification to the content of the article would need to bere-generated. Pages can then be re-assembled with the updated fragmenton-the-fly (e.g., at content generation system 120) and pushed out tothe web tier (e.g., web server or content delivery system 110). Theoutdated fragment may be invalidated as described above.

In one embodiment, the process of the dynamic provisioning of contentmay begin when content delivery system 110 receives a user request.Content delivery system 110 may be configured to pass all or some userrequests to content generation system 120. This can be done in anautomated fashion such that content generation system 120 maydynamically create, assemble, generate, or otherwise prepare a page thatis personalized based on the request and a wide variety of contextvariables. Again, pages may be assembled from internal content managedby content management system 140 or external content from other datasources, all of which may change independently of one another.

Although the invention has been described in detail herein withreference to the illustrative embodiments, it should be understood thatthe description is by way of example only and is not to be construed ina limiting sense. It is to be further understood, therefore, thatnumerous changes in the details of the embodiments of this invention andadditional embodiments of this invention will be apparent to, and may bemade by, persons of ordinary skill in the art having reference to thisdescription. Accordingly, the scope of the invention should bedetermined by the following claims and their legal equivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for fragment-level dynamic contentgeneration, the method comprising: tracking dependencies among pagefragments, the tracking performed by a server computer supporting anetwork site on a network; receiving, from a client devicecommunicatively connected to the network, a request for a web page;determining, by the server computer, a set of page fragments for the webpage such that the web page is specifically tailored to the request fromthe client device, the set of page fragments containing a first pagefragment and a second page fragment; determining, by the server computerand based on the dependencies tracked among the page fragments, whethera content change to the network site affects any of the page fragments,the page fragments comprising the set of page fragments for the webpage; when the content change to the network site is determined toaffect the first page fragment but not the second page fragment of theweb page, dynamically re-generating the first page fragment to producean updated first page fragment; dynamically generating the web pageutilizing the set of page fragments specifically tailored to the requestfrom the client device, wherein the dynamically generated web pagecomprises the second page fragment and the updated first page fragmentto account for the content change to the network site; and in responseto the request from the client device, providing the dynamicallygenerated web page to the client device over the network.
 2. The methodaccording to claim 1, wherein the dynamically re-generating furthercomprises dynamically re-generating any of the page fragments affectedby the content change to the network site.
 3. The method according toclaim 1, further comprising: when the content change to the network siteis determined to affect the first page fragment but not the second pagefragment of the web page, invalidating the first page fragment but notthe second page fragment of the web page.
 4. The method according toclaim 1, wherein the page fragments are managed by a first sourcesystem, a second source system, or a combination thereof, the firstsource system internal to the server computer supporting the networksite on the network, the second source system external to the servercomputer supporting the network site on the network.
 5. The methodaccording to claim 4, wherein the content change to the network siteoccurred at the first source system.
 6. The method according to claim 4,wherein the content change to the network site occurred at the secondsource system.
 7. The method according to claim 6, further comprising:storing the updated first page fragment in a cache.
 8. A system forfragment-level dynamic content generation, the system comprising: atleast one processor; at least one non-transitory computer readablemedium; and stored instructions translatable by the at least oneprocessor to perform: tracking dependencies among page fragmentssupporting a network site on a network; receiving, from a client devicecommunicatively connected to the network, a request for a web page;determining a set of page fragments for the web page such that the webpage is specifically tailored to the request from the client device, theset of page fragments containing a first page fragment and a second pagefragment; determining, based on the dependencies tracked among the pagefragments, whether a content change to the network site affects any ofthe page fragments, the page fragments comprising the set of pagefragments for the web page; when the content change to the network siteis determined to affect the first page fragment but not the second pagefragment of the web page, dynamically re-generating the first pagefragment to produce an updated first page fragment; dynamicallygenerating the web page utilizing the set of page fragments specificallytailored to the request from the client device, wherein the dynamicallygenerated web page comprises the second page fragment and the updatedfirst page fragment to account for the content change to the networksite; and in response to the request from the client device, providingthe dynamically generated web page to the client device over thenetwork.
 9. The system of claim 8, wherein the dynamically re-generatingfurther comprises dynamically re-generating any of the page fragmentsaffected by the content change to the network site.
 10. The system ofclaim 8, wherein the first page fragment is invalidated but not thesecond page fragment of the web page when the content change to thenetwork site is determined to affect the first page fragment but not thesecond page fragment of the web page.
 11. The system of claim 8, whereinthe page fragments are managed by a first source system, a second sourcesystem, or a combination thereof, the first source system internal to aserver computer supporting the network site on the network, the secondsource system external to the server computer supporting the networksite on the network.
 12. The system of claim 11, wherein the contentchange to the network site occurred at the first source system.
 13. Thesystem of claim 11, wherein the content change to the network siteoccurred at the second source system.
 14. The system of claim 13,wherein the updated first page fragment is stored in a cache.
 15. Acomputer program product for fragment-level dynamic content generation,the computer program product comprising at least one non-transitorycomputer readable medium storing instructions translatable by at leastone processor to perform: tracking dependencies among page fragmentssupporting a network site on a network; receiving, from a client devicecommunicatively connected to the network, a request for a web page;determining a set of page fragments for the web page such that the webpage is specifically tailored to the request from the client device, theset of page fragments containing a first page fragment and a second pagefragment; determining, based on the dependencies tracked among the pagefragments, whether a content change to the network site affects any ofthe page fragments, the page fragments comprising the set of pagefragments for the web page; when the content change to the network siteis determined to affect the first page fragment but not the second pagefragment of the web page, dynamically re-generating the first pagefragment to produce an updated first page fragment; dynamicallygenerating the web page utilizing the set of page fragments specificallytailored to the request from the client device, wherein the dynamicallygenerated web page comprises the second page fragment and the updatedfirst page fragment to account for the content change to the networksite; and in response to the request from the client device, providingthe dynamically generated web page to the client device over thenetwork.
 16. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein thedynamically re-generating further comprises dynamically re-generatingany of the page fragments affected by the content change to the networksite.
 17. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein theinstructions are further translatable by the at least one processor toinvalidate the first page fragment but not the second page fragment ofthe web page when the content change to the network site is determinedto affect the first page fragment but not the second page fragment ofthe web page.
 18. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein thepage fragments are managed by a first source system, a second sourcesystem, or a combination thereof, the first source system internal to aserver computer supporting the network site on the network, the secondsource system external to the server computer supporting the networksite on the network.
 19. The computer program product of claim 18,wherein the content change to the network site occurred at the firstsource system or at the second source system.
 20. The computer programproduct of claim 15, wherein the updated first page fragment is storedin a cache.